Category Archives: Silver Spring

Observations on things where I live and work: Silver Spring, Maryland.

Acorn Park Revisited

Posted on by
Reply

In 2017, I organized events aimed at persuading Montgomery County, Maryland, leaders to tell a more accurate and inclusive story in a Silver Spring park. The events generated some media buzz and I wrote several articles and a book chapter about them. In the end, though, nothing happened.

Protesting Invisibility, Acorn Urban Park, Silver Spring, Maryland, June 2017.

Or did something change?

Acorn Park and the adjacent Silver Spring Memory Wall still tell a whitewashed and exclusionary story. Nothing has changed there. But beyond the park, scholars, journalists, and residents now describe Silver Spring as a sundown suburb. Local planners have incorporated my research into new policy documents on creating equity in Montgomery County.

Earlier this year, a Baltimore planner published a podcast episode, “Story Shift: Acorn Park.”

Screenshot from Acorn Park podcast (October 2024).

Podcaster Zoe Roane-Hopkins recounted the park’s history, including its new chapters added in 2017. Her observations about the park in 2024 speak volumes to how effective my efforts were: they raised awareness, but accomplished nothing in terms of changing the narrative in the park:

In 2017, the Maryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission was solicited in public feedback for improvements to Acorn Park and in response, local nonprofit Impact Silver Spring and showing up for racial justice, Montgomery County joined together to stage a protest at Acorn Park to highlight the continued lack of visibility for black folks through public art in the park.  They called for an increase in accurate representation in stories in public art and proposed suggestions to do this at the Acorn Park site …

… When I visited Acorn Park for this episode, there was no evidence of any moves to rewrite the narrative of this little green space to be more representative.

Zoe Roan-Hopkins, Story Shift: Acorn Park

The changes are small, but positive. Perhaps one of these days, Montgomery County will get around to scrubbing off some of the whitewash.

© 2024 D.S. Rotenstein

Memories of Silver Spring’s Doughnut Shop

Posted on by
Reply

Last week, the Silver Spring Historical Society (Silver Spring, Maryland) invited its Facebook audience to share stories about a donut shop. The society (which really isn’t a society; it’s four boomer building huggers) is short on history and steeped in nostalgia that celebrates the white supremacists who “built” Silver Spring and erases Black history. This post accepts the historical society’s request for “specific memories” of the site.

Silver Spring Historical Society Facebook post, June 3, 2022. https://www.facebook.com/sshistory/posts/2274102266087989

Continue reading →

Silver Spring video shorts: Acorn Park

Posted on by
Reply

This is the third of three posts featuring short video segments produced over the summer for AmeriCorps. The first two covered Silver Spring’s Tastee Diner and Crivella’s Wayside Inn.

This clip features a site in Silver Spring where the community’s Jim Crow history was erased. The “Silver Spring Memory Wall” is a five-mural installation next to Acorn Park. It is the product of historic preservation and planning decisions made in the 1990s to tell Silver Spring’s history through public art.

Those murals present a nostalgic view of Silver Spring history that glosses over its decades as a sundown suburb. It also intentionally sought to ameliorate the absence of Blacks from public places in the twentieth century by replacing white people with African Americans in a depiction of Silver Spring’s train station in the 1940s.

Silver Spring Memory Wall, B&O Railroad Station mural.

Former Washington, D.C., muralist Mame Cohalan (who died in 2020) recognized that the historic photos she was using were missing Black people. She asked her Montgomery County clients for permission to add some diversity — Black people — into the artwork. The resulting mural erased Silver Spring’s Jim Crow history by inserting Black people into a place and time where they otherwise never would have been found.

1994 Montgomery County Planning Department memo asking permission to add more “cultural diversity” to Memory Wall murals.

This clip tells the Acorn Park and Silver Spring Memory Wall story.

Post 3 of 3

© 2021 D.S. Rotenstein

Silver Spring video shorts: Crivella’s Wayside Inn

Posted on by
Reply

This is the second of three posts featuring short video segments produced over the summer for AmeriCorps. The first in this series featured nostalgia and Silver Spring’s Tastee Diner.

This clip visits the site where Crivella’s Wayside Inn operated for several decades in the twentieth century. In the early 1960s, its owners refused to integrate the restaurant’s dining room — even after Montgomery County enacted an open accommodations law. Years of civil rights protests and litigation ensued. Montgomery County later bought the property and demolished the building, foreclosing on opportunities to commemorate the civil rights era and Silver Spring’s Black history. County leaders could have celebrated the life of civil rights icon Roscoe Nix; instead, they rebranded the space “Bottleworks Lane” to commemorate two historic bottling plants nearby.

This clip focusing on Crivella’s tells some of this story.

Post 2 of 3

© 2021 D.S. Rotenstein

Silver Spring video shorts: The Tastee Diner

Posted on by
Reply

In August I got an email from an AmeriCorps Project Change leader asking me to contribute to an upcoming training tour of Silver Spring, Maryland, for new volunteers. The project director and I spoke for about an hour and I agreed to produce three short videos about historic places in Silver Spring where history has been whitewashed.

The September 2, 2021, day-long tour wound through sites on both sides of the D.C.-Maryland line and it included stops at the Tastee Diner, the former Crivella’s Wayside Inn, and Acorn Park.

The clip focusing on the Tastee Diner contrasts the nostalgia-laden histories and historic preservation efforts that omit the popular eatery’s Jim Crow past.

Post 1 of 3

© 2021 D.S. Rotenstein

About that art

Posted on by
Reply

In 2017 I was deep in oral history interviews with residents of Lyttonsville, a historically Black community in Silver Spring, Maryland. I had just organized a public event meant to draw attention to murals that erase the Black experience and uplift the stories of white supremacy.

Protesting Invisibility, Acorn Urban Park, Silver Spring, Maryland, June 2017.

Protesting Invisibility, Acorn Urban Park, Silver Spring, Maryland, June 2017.

Shortly after the event in Acorn Urban Park, a lifelong Lyttonsville resident mentioned a photo collage she saw in a Silver Spring bank branch. She asked if I had seen it and I replied that I had not. I asked her to describe it for me.

The woman explained that it showed Black folks in Silver Spring who “never existed” in her community. She said that like the murals in Acorn Park, it creates a false sense of history by placing Black people in spaces in a time when and where they never would have existed. I asked her what was so troubling about the image. She replied,

It could be [bank] is making a statement about American history in a special way.  However, it is strange to have a beautiful photo there in the midst of Silver Spring’s history.  When I went to the bank and saw it, I was shocked, but so pleased because most photos of my people are not shown in the public.

Bank photo collage, photographed in 2017.

After our initial conversation, I went to the bank to photograph the collage. After seeing it for myself, I then exchanged emails with the Lyttonsville resident who brought it to my attention:

I wish I knew who the people were because it looks like a photo from the early 1900’s.  I don’t know that the photo in that day was color.  I have seen photos of our race like this, but always black and white.  My grandmother and grandfather would have dressed like this.  So, it is authentic, but I don’t know who they are or where they are from.
Dressing up has always been very important to African Americans, until the 60’s.  Even when they were enslaved, a head covering for women was very important.  Should they have escaped to freedom, they were going to dress.  The hats in this photo are authentic and so is the pose.  This had to be a church portrait or something important connected to “family.”

There is a fine line between appropriation and celebration. Nostalgia runs deep in Silver Spring and in many communities. It’s tempting to exploit nostalgia to connect national brands with the communities where their branches are located. But what are the impacts of haphazardly selecting images and throwing them together in a visually appealing presentation that has no connection to reality or to the people in the community?

The Silver Spring Historical Society frequently posts about nostalgia-laden murals in the community.

 

Infrastructure and Social Justice

Posted on by
Reply

I recently participated in a Society for Industrial Archeology online program featuring projects with a social justice element. The SIA program titled, “Infrastructure and Social Justice” included a presentation on a Tennessee bridge used during the Trail of Tears and a viaduct in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Infrastructure and racial segregation have a long and fraught history. Railroads and highways frequently created firm boundaries separating racialized spaces. Many cities throughout North America have their “other side of the tracks” or interstate highways that were built to separate Black neighborhoods from white ones. In some places, like Detroit, Michigan; Decatur, Georgia; and, North Brentwood, Maryland, walls and other barricades divided Black space from white space.

Railroad tracks, Decatur, Georgia.

Continue reading →

Silver Spring Civil Rights Museum

Posted on by
1

Crivella’s Wayside Inn. Tucked away in the 1000-block of East West Highway near downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, this former restaurant was the scene of non-violent civil rights protests between 1962 and 1965. Montgomery County in 2006 bought the former Crivella’s Wayside Inn. After holding listening sessions with members of Silver Spring’s historic Black community, county leaders worked with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History to collect stories, artifacts, and design exhibits to tell the story of Silver Spring’s Black communities, from colonial plantations and enslavement through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement.

That’s what a journalist writing about a new Silver Spring Civil Rights Museum might have written had there been a museum developed in the former Crivella’s space. Instead, Montgomery County officials demolished the former restaurant and erased its history. This post explores a lost opportunity for Montgomery County to confront its segregationist history and seek reconciliation with its African American residents, past and present. Continue reading →

Protestors deface Silver Spring “monument”

Posted on by
2

There are 53 public art installations in Silver Spring, Maryland. Only two depict historical figures. One is a mural showing President Harry Truman during a visit to the suburban community. The other is a bronze bust of Norman Lane. Earlier this week, during protests stemming from Minneapolis resident George Floyd’s murder by police, vandals twice defaced the Norman Lane “monument.”

JUTP-Norman Lane

Just Up The Pike, Facebook, June 2020.

Lots of folks know who Harry Truman was. But Norman Lane?

Lane (1911-1987) was an indigent who wandered throughout downtown Silver Spring for much of the 20th century. He was affectionately dubbed the “Mayor of Silver Spring.” In 1991 a local artist dedicated a bronze bust depicting Lane in an alley dubbed the “Mayor’s Promenade” near 8221 Georgia Avenue.

norman-lane-2017

Norman Lane bust, 2017.

Lane was a well-known figure and stories of his exploits are part of Silver Spring’s oral tradition. He was able to walk into many Silver Spring restaurants, get a seat, and eat compliments of the establishment. These same places declined to serve African Americans. Or, if they did, required African Americans to go to back doors for take-out service.

The Norman Lane bust was one of 19 stops along the Silver Spring Black History tours that I gave between 2016 and 2018. I intentionally included Lane’s monument to underscore how effectively Silver Spring has whitewashed its history. While the community celebrates the memory of a colorful character in downtown art and commemorative spaces, there are no similar artworks and spaces dedicated to the community’s notable people of color (African Americans) who contributed to Silver Spring’s history.

2012RoscoeNix

Roscoe Nix. Source: Montgomery County Volunteer Center.

At the Norman Lane site, I talked about Roscoe Nix (1911-2012), the Alabama native and World War II veteran who worked in the U.S. departments of Labor and Justice. Nix frequently is credited with being a pioneer in Montgomery County civil rights history.

Nix served on the Maryland Human Rights Commission as its executive secretary in the 1960s; he was the first African American elected to the Montgomery County School Board (1974); and, he was the Montgomery County NAACP chapter president from 1980 to 1990.

Roscoe Nix Elementary School, 2017.

Though Montgomery County named an elementary school (several miles outside of downtown Silver Spring) for Nix in 2006, there are no monuments, markers, etc. commemorating the events in 1962 that launched Nix’s civil rights career. Nix’s contributions are invisible and the site where he cut his civil rights activism was demolished more than a decade ago.

In early 1962, shortly after Montgomery County enacted a public accommodations law, Nix and several of his white and African American coworkers went to a local restaurant in downtown Silver Spring for lunch. Nix was one of more than 600 Department of Labor employees whose offices had moved to Silver Spring the year before.

Silver Spring at the time was a “sundown suburb” and about 150 to 200 African Americans were among the agency employees relocated to Silver Spring in October 1961.

labor-dept-shifts

The Washington Post, October 17, 1961.

The Washington Post in October 1961 noted,

Silver Spring has a very small Negro population and a recent study by the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission showed that some eating establishments will accept Negro patronage and some will not.

The same Post article noted,

While a few of the Negro employes [sic.] are on the professional level a majority hold clerical jobs.

That 1961 move set the stage for civil rights actions over the next five years that helped remove many of the remaining Jim Crow barriers in downtown Silver Spring.

Between April and August 1962, at least four episodes of racial discrimination were documented at Crivella’s Wayside Inn on East-West Highway. Roscoe Nix was the first to file a complaint filed under the county’s public accommodation law.

1962 protest photo

Baltimore Afro-American, May 5, 1962.

The restaurant was the site of several sit-ins and street demonstrations in 1962. Over the next four years, additional complaints and litigation were filed against Crivella’s alleging

CORE team served

Chicago Defender, February 18, 1963.

civil rights violations. The demonstrations were widely covered by Black and white newspapers and they attracted such notables as Washington-based Julius Hobson, a leader in the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE).

Roscoe Nix’s activism got it all started.

Meanwhile, as Nix was trying to get a meal in one of Silver Spring’s restaurants, Lane was able to get seated in most establishments he entered and he was served — the food was complimentary. In segregated Silver Spring, most businesses wouldn’t take Roscoe Nix’s money and he was unwelcome in their establishments. Lane, who had no money, found comfort and nourishment throughout the community.

A Silver Spring alley was renamed to commemorate Norman Lane’s life.

I can only speculate at this point why Norman Lane’s monument is being vandalized during this period of protest and unrest over white supremacy. I hope it’s because some folks in Silver Spring recognize the irony in the community’s commemoration of a homeless white man instead of a Black civil rights leader.

Lane-Nix Slide

Slide from “Silver Spring: A Sundown Suburb in the Capital Beltway” by David Rotenstein.

© 2020 D.S. Rotenstein

E. Brooke Lee’s Silver Spring

Posted on by
Reply

E. Brooke Lee (1892-1984) was a segregationist real estate speculator. Histories of Silver Spring and Montgomery County, Maryland, celebrate his contributions to local politics and economic development while ignoring or minimizing his role in creating a sundown suburb where only whites could own and rent homes.

Though I have written about Lee elsewhere (Washington Post 2017 and “Protesting Invisibility in Silver Spring, Maryland” [2018]), the full extent of his racialized real estate practices remain unexplored. This post is a brief introduction to some of Lee’s real estate holdings and the devices he used to keep Silver Spring white.

Sign for one of Lee’s “restricted” subdivisions in NW Washington. “Restricted” was code for “whites only.” Credit: DC Public Library/National Archives and Records Administration.

Lee and his contemporaries accomplished this through the use of racially restrictive deed covenants attached to the individual properties they owned and sold as well as the residential subdivisions they developed. In Silver Spring’s commercial and public spaces, strictly enforced Jim Crow rules prevented African Americans from shopping in stores, seeing movies, eating in restaurants, and participating in civic events. The segregation buck stopped with Lee, who was a major investor and political boss and who wielded substantial power between 1920 and 1948.

Even after he left public life, Lee continued to exert considerable influence in the policies and practices that reinforced segregation in Montgomery County until 1970.

E. Brooke Lee described civil rights laws as “anti-white laws.” He viewed open housing laws enacted to eliminate discrimination as a threat to the suburbs he created.

After Lee returned to Silver Spring after serving in World War I, he began building on his family’s real estate empire. It dated back to 1840 when Lee’s ancestor, Francis Preston Blair established a sprawling plantation that relied on enslaved labor. Lee had a diverse real estate portfolio. He subdivided and sold commercial and residential lots under his own name as well as through the several development companies he founded in the 1920s and 1930s. These include the North Washington Realty Company and the Fairway Land Company.

Sample of residential subdivisions platted by E. Brooke Lee and his various companies in Silver Spring, 1920-1948.

Collectively, Lee’s real estate transactions comprised the sale and development of hundreds of parcels where African Americans could not live unless they were domestic servants employed by white property owners or tenants. Here is a sample of the racially restrictive deed covenants found in deeds Lee and his companies executed between 1920 and 1948 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially restrictive deed covenants were unenforceable in courts.

E. Brooke Lee, Individual

For the purposes of sanitation and health, neither the Grantee, nor its successors or assigns, shall or will sell, grant, lease, rent or convey the said premises to any person of the negro race — E. Brooke Lee and Elizabeth Lee to the Convention of The Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Washington, April 5, 1929. Montgomery County Deed Book 478, p. 475.

North Washington Realty Company

For the purposes of sanitation and health it is agreed by the parties hereto that the property hereby conveyed shall not be sold, leased, rented or transferred to a member of a race whose death rate is greater than that of the white race. — North Washington Realty Company, Incorporated, to Bertha D. King, January 21, 1928. Montgomery County Deed Book 448, p. 409.

Fairway Land Company

For the purposes of sanitation and health it is agreed by the parties hereto that the property hereby conveyed shall not be sold, leased, rented or transferred to a member of a race whose death rate is greater than that of the white race. — Fairway Land Company to Clara V. Peter, March 12, 1929. Montgomery County Deed Book 478, p. 194.

After the United States entered World War II, the Washington, D.C., housing authority seized several of Lee’s subdivisions developed by the Fairway Land Company. The properties were to be developed to provide housing for white defense industry workers. Lee challenged the federal action in court to protect his deed covenants. Though the U.S. agency won the case, the housing remained mainly vacant because not enough white occupants could be found. This happened at a time when Washington area Black families and defense workers struggled to find housing. Read more about the Fairway case in this 2016 blog post and subsequent Maryland Department of Transportation Cultural Resources (CRaB) Bulletin.

Racially restrictive deed covenant, E. Brooke Lee, 1929.

E. Brooke Lee Middle School, Silver Spring. My 2017 Washington Post article describing Lee as a segregationist spurred a 2019 initiative to change this school’s name.

© 202 D.S. Rotenstein